Vesteal 01 – 01 – Ghost in the Yew

by Blake Hausladen

  I stood up, alive with the knowledge, and yelled to the empty forest, “Barok, I love you.”

  I heard Clever snort. I ran to him and leaped into the saddle, spun him around, and yelled for him to run. He thundered down the trail, and a familiar power stirred my heart. My steed became a black bolt of lightning beneath me.

  “Tyaw!”

  Branches slapped me, but the trail’s sterner treacheries were jumped, ducked, and knocked aside. We flew beneath the green, and the bridge came into view. The trail widened, and Clever galloped faster. The road on the far side came into view.

  Barok was there, and my heart skipped a beat. His pony’s hooves pounded the ground, and his grim face was Kyoden’s.

  My prince saw me, and his body arched up, mouth open with a smile and cry. Clever closed the space quickly, and I jumped out of the saddle and into his arms.

  His hand caught in my hair. He held me back at arm’s length and urgently brushed back my hair to find the cuts upon my scalp and arms. He saw my bruises, too.

  “You are hurt.”

  I took hold of his face and pulled him close again. “It is nothing. I can be healed. Kyoden knows a way.”

  Barok put his hand upon my belly, and I nodded, weeping and smiling.

  His eyes brightened even as they filled with tears. “I am so sorry. I just learned it. I did not know they had given you the medicine. Please believe me. Did Kyoden say he knew a way to fix you? Truly?”

  “Yes. Yes. I will bear your sons if you wish it.”

  We were wet with tears. I was sure I would run out of them. He began to speak, but I put a hand over his mouth.

  “Barok, you must allow Gern and Fana to marry.” His brow furrowed in momentary confusion, but then he nodded. He tried to pull my hand away. I added, “You will tell Gern? Tell him he has your blessing?”

  “Yes, I promise it,” he said and pressed his lips upon mine. He was warm. I relaxed into his arms. He slid something hard and cool onto my wrist as his lips moved onto my neck and then my ear.

  “Be my wife,” he whispered, setting his large hands around me and his dark eyes onto mine.

  “Yes. Yes. Yes,” I whispered, and he blinked fresh tears down his cheeks. I kissed them away and wiped his eyes softly with my thumbs. I saw the bracelet as I did it. Black, green, and gold, its jewels and polished surface flashed in the sun.

  “You foolish man,” I wept. “How long have you had this? It is perfect. Absolutely perfect.”

  “Too long,” he laughed and cried, kissed my forehead, and wrapped me again in his arms. “I have feared my father’s finding out.”

  I set my head on his chest and squeezed him. “A man who has killed Hessier could ask permission for many things. Tell your father I worked at the palace. That should satisfy him.”

  He laughed loud and long at that and squeezed me heartily. “Right. You are too right. Come, let’s return, then, and make it official.”

  “In a moment,” I whispered. “It is peaceful here.”

  The breeze was light, the dancing of leaves and flow of water a theater. The sun warmed me, and his hands pressed firmly. I cannot judge how long the moment lasted, nor pour from my heart enough words to describe it. He loved me, my warrior prince, and together, against the darkness, we would go.

  70

  Arilas Barok Yentif

  We rode back sharing Clever’s saddle. The thick forest was quiet and happy, the world too far away to harm us. Dia slept for a span, wrapped in my cloak and arms. I kept our pace slow and let her rest.

  But that simple span was all the peace we were allowed. Sahin and Leger were the first forward from the crowd that rushed out of Urnedi to greet us. Both looked ready for the executioner’s axe.

  “Not a word,” I greeted them before others were close enough to hear. “Kyoden knows a way to heal her. I will hear no apologies.”

  Leger flinched but managed a brief smile. A bandage circled his forehead, and both it and his vest were dark with dried blood. Sahin’s expression was odd, his gaze locked upon Dia.

  “What is it, bowyer?” I asked.

  Dia seemed to understand him. “Kyoden told me none of your secrets.”

  He nodded thankfully and asked, “Can I have your word this will be the last time either of you ride beyond our reach?”

  I was close to joking at his seriousness when Dia said, “We pledge it, Sahin. We are in your care.”

  My bodyguards rode up around us then, and their severity put Enhedu’s business back above the naiveté of my happiness.

  The rest of the town crowded around us. I could think of just one thing to say to them. I lifted Dia’s bracelet-adorned wrist and proclaimed, “The matron has agreed to be my bride.”

  They cheered so long and loud, it was as though my father did not exist. Did they not know the danger of my declaration? My father’s permission for it was missing, and his wrath could be their deaths. I searched for Selt, confident that at least he would have a look of concern, but he happily applauded with the rest.

  The women of Urnedi, their white scarves like sashes of office, gathered around us and whisked Dia away. I was similarly surrounded by a joyous mob of the town’s men and was compelled toward the Constant Pony.

  Mugs of Haton’s fresh-brewed beer appeared by the dozen, and songs I had never heard filled the air. The men of Enhedu, Trace, and the Kaaryon seemed to know every word, and when they came to the end of the fourth rowdy song, Leger raised his mug of water and cleared his throat.

  “Gentleman, to the prince.”

  They drank their mugs down and snatched fresh ones from the thick line of them upon the bar.

  Gern raised his next. “Today he lost his head, and we a bit of blood. Good thing for him he lost his heart, or we would all be dead.”

  A great cheer rose, and everyone drank. Others took up the toast. “To the woman to whom he is spoken.”

  “To the rest whose hearts are now broken.”

  “To the men who will rescue those maidens.”

  “To those maidens whose love we will lay in.”

  “To the men who will kiss all the maidens.”

  I was baffled and lightheaded for the endless gulps of beer. Parties upon the Deyalu and the palace weddings of royalty had none of my town’s easy revelry. My Yentif kin would have found the songs and toasts vulgar, the exuberance moronic, and the company an affront. The slapping of backs would have started duels, and an offering of so rural a drink was insult enough to lock a man away. I was drinking peasant beer. The nobility, it became appallingly obvious, had no idea how to have a good time. I raised my mug.

  “To the brewer whose casks this was made in.”

  The crowd roared again and gulped down the brew with abandon. Some finished so fast it was unbelievable, and they began to urge me on. It was a race! But I was much too late to it and spilled a great deal trying desperately to gulp my mug down in one go. I was last.

  “A round on the groom’s account,” Gern called to Haton. The crowd roared, mugs were passed, and new reasons to drink them filled the air.

  It was over so soon it seemed, though it was late in the night when Leger pushed me up the sickening circle of Urnedi’s stairs. The alsman had had the good sense to encourage me to throw up before I made the dizzying climb.

  “One more round,” I yelled, but Leger delivered me to bed instead.

  Not much else of that night stayed in my memory, but I would never forget the next morning. I woke entwined with Dia upon a bed so covered in flowers I could not find the blankets beneath us nor tell her from the flowers. Not much at all made sense until I recognized her skin was painted from head to foot with swirls of vines and bright red and yellow flowers. A dress covered with more of the same lay across the back of our chair.

  I laughed to see smears of the paint everywhere upon my body. The result the design was meant to inspire was not yet possible, but knowing it would be soon was enough for me that day. I would have a wife. She would bear the Vestea
l sons.

  And I do think I could have lingered there a lifetime if the shutters had been closed. I shivered, growled, and rose. Dia moaned and rolled over, flowers clinging to her everywhere. I laughed, smiled, and stepped to the window.

  The sight of the Hemari tents below stopped me in my tracks. They had not moved, waiting still to escort my response to my father.

  I sat down at the desk. The letter wrote itself.

  * * *

  The 85th of Summer, 1195

  * * *

  Vall, honored Father and Exaltier of Zoviya,

  There is a girl who has been in my service since Bessradi, and in these dark days she has earned my trust and carries my sword. Her name is Dia Esar. Your coin paid Dagoda for her skill, and her name appears upon the rolls of those who have served upon the Deyalu. She boasts no wealth, no family, and her father’s name is blackened by the same deed as my own. It is providence perhaps that I have fallen in love with someone as sullied.

  Dear father, I submit myself to you for your guidance, your counsel, and your blessing for us to wed.

  * * *

  Your most humble sword arm,

  Barok of Enhedu

  71

  Colonel Leger Mertone

  The 86th of Summer, 1195

  My head was clouded and pained. Moving sent the pound of blood through me. I had to skip my morning with the axe. Most of the town was as wobbly, but for them it was from the beer. My wound and my conscience afflicted me. Thell’s words had struck home.

  I went in search of food sometime near midday. The practice field was empty. I needed no guesses at the response Barok had sent to his father, and I tried not to worry what Vall’s answer to the request would be. It took me a moment longer than it should have to remember that I had intended to send my Autumn Report of Standing along with the royal messenger. It took another to remember I hadn’t finished rewriting it yet, either. Rot.

  I scrounged a meal from the keep’s kitchen and ate alone in the great hall while I finished the composition. I scratched my eyes and the bandage above them. The day was already old, and Urnedi needed many things done. I decided the report was sufficient, abandoned my meal, and made my way back to my shop. I was getting ready to look over the accounting that needed to be done when Sahin stepped quietly inside.

  “Meet me on the bridge before the yew at dusk,” he said and stepped back out.

  So much for getting anything done. The most I managed while I waited was to nod while one of my bookkeepers explained the latest inventory.

  When the time came, I found Gern also making his way to the stable. We saddled Fells and rode silently out. We found Sahin and the senior Chaukai waiting for us at the top of the bridge. They were grim. Sahin did not look well, sick almost. Gern’s father looked as though he had been crying.

  Sahin greeted us and said, “When my father invited me similarly to meet him upon this bridge, I already suspected there was more to being a Chaukai than the oath I had sworn. You have both been beneath the yew so know it better than I did. But I must warn you, tonight is not a ceremony of welcoming. You are here to be judged. If you cross this bridge with us, what awaits you is pain. Some do not survive it, so the decision to bring you was not made lightly. We cannot help you, and once started, there is no turning back. Will you submit yourself to this?”

  “I will go, as my father did before me,” Gern said proudly, erect in the saddle. I simply nodded, and we started across.

  We left our ponies along the trail, and Sahin marched us to the large yew tree in the center of the forest. He directed us to sit, and the Chaukai formed a circle around us. There we waited. The air was thick, and the silent forest loomed. It was not long before we were cloaked in utter darkness.

  Then I heard Kyoden breathe. The hollow, dry rasp was close, but my blinking eyes found nothing. The same terrible panic gripped me, and if I had not heard the dead before, I would have run screaming.

  A glow brought my head around. Ghostly fingers emerged from a tree, shedding thin wisps of luminous smoke. The broken digits became an arm and then two as Kyoden’s flaming torso and head emerged and lit the darkness. His torn clothes and broken armor solidified as he floated into the circle and stopped before Gern.

  “We know your blood. You are welcome here, son of Chaukai.”

  Gern bowed and the ghost turned to me. His judging gaze weighed upon me as though my limbs had turned to lead. Others ghosts emerged and added their angry glow to the king’s. The heaviness became a pudding of hatred. They circled and shrieked. The air warmed and smelled of wood ash and iron. Bile rose in my throat. My eyes watered. Another of them entered the circle with sword in hand. It was Solon, Kyoden’s angriest son.

  He drifted in close and pointed his sword to my breast. His voice bounced inside my skull. ‘Your blood belongs to our destroyers.’

  “Kill me or keep me. I give my blood to you.”

  Solon burst into flame and shrieked with rage. His fury scorched my skin and lit the green canopy of needles high overhead.

  I fought the fear and found my voice. “Give me your oath.”

  ‘You are tainted. Like the girl. Corrupt. Sworn to Zoviya.’

  “Kyoden,” I said through the rage. “Decide it. I am bound to your heir and submit myself to your judgment.”

  I found a calm then. I expected the stab of Solon’s blade. Two oaths given in opposition, or one renounced for another. Neither path was honorable. I had the stink of green meat, and I deserved to die.

  Solon circled once and then swooped back toward me with sword poised to strike.

  I closed my eyes. “Farewell, Darmia.”

  ‘We know this name,’ Solon said and spun on Sahin. ‘Is it? Is this the one you have told us about? The one he loves so dearly?’

  Sahin nodded and the flaming ghosts slowed and cooled. “Swear yourself to the Vesteal upon her blood.”

  Other ghosts shrieked and circled.

  ‘Not enough.’

  ‘Kill him.’

  Solon crackled with fresh flame and the rest withered. He turned back to me. ‘Swear yourself upon her blood, and I will call you brother.’

  I could feel Darmia then, her hand upon my shoulder, her kindness, her caring. I remembered the smell of cherries, the white of her honest smile, and the quick confidence of our conversations. She would never love me, but I would sooner cut off my own head that see her come to harm. I set my forehead upon the forest floor.

  “To you, to yours, to these trees, to this land, I swear myself upon the blood of the woman whom I love.”

  The forest fell silent, Solon nodded to me, and the ghosts began to withdraw. Kyoden lingered.

  Gern looked pleased, but his father shook his head and looked even more stricken. Our ordeal, it seemed, had not yet begun. But who else was there to judge us?

  The king did not keep us waiting. “Listen now, kinsmen, to the lady who rules this forest and keeps our secrets. Mother Yew. Mother Yew, awaken.”

  The air stirred and the seven gnarled pillars of the tree groaned in the stiff breeze.

  ‘Welcome,’ we heard then, and the single word was like a knife through my temple. Gern screamed. But the searing pain subsided and left behind a strange feeling, like the glowing halo that remains after looking into the sun. The dreary voice had not made a sound. The word had penetrated my very thoughts. This was not the magic of Bayen.

  ‘I have been watching you,’ she said. ‘I am glad you have been brought before me. It has been too many years since I have been asked to judge new men.’

  “Are you a god?” I asked.

  ‘No, man of Zoviya. There are no gods as you think of them. There is only a Spirit of the Earth and a Spirit of Darkness.’

  “I do not understand.”

  ‘So bold. So bold and so ignorant. What a mystery men are—such a surprise with each who is brought. I wonder, could a man of Zoviya survive hearing the truth of the world?’

  “I am not dead yet,” I said stupidly.


  She laughed lightly. ‘And you, boy? Are you ready to hear the tale? You are young. Too young, perhaps.’

  Gern mumbled an answer but seemed again in pain. He gasped.

  I felt a stab then, a black lick of fire through my chest. I cried out.

  The tree said, ‘Ah, now you feel His hold upon you. He forgot about you, perhaps. A lost soul. Prepare yourself, human. He will not want to let you go.’

  “Explain this. What are you?”

  ‘You will learn all presently, man of Zoviya. It is a tale that must begin at the beginning.’

  She paused, Kyoden and Solon withdrew, and when their glow was gone, the pain vanished, and my vision shifted as if I were floating alone through a thick bank of fog. Dark shapes began to form in the mist and swirl violently around me.

  ‘This is my first memory,’ she said. ‘From the very moment the world and I first came into being. Two great spirits clashing in the void—a swirling dance of mud and mist. One sought to fill it, the other desired nothing but darkness. Endlessly they fought, growing ever more tangled until they grew inseparable.’

  Images of it all swirled madly around me—the gray mist and black shapes tore each other apart. But the wounds bled blue, brown, and green, and the great swirls began to coalesce. I wept, and I listened.

  ‘The void was filled,’ she said, ‘and at its center, the world was formed. I heard the naming of all things: the trees and lesser plants, the animals, the creatures of the sea, and all the small things that crawl and slither. I saw the sun rise. The Spirit of the Earth, our great mother, had triumphed. She gave Herself and allowed the Spirit of Darkness to ravage Her so the world could be born by their pairing.’

  The resulting vision was very like the first glimpse of Enhedu when riding over the mountains. The newly created world was bright, blue, and green. I rejoiced with her, but then the vision shifted to a place that was cold and dark, to a cave filled with odd, shambling forms. One started its way out toward the warmth and the light, and the rest followed. But another, enraged perhaps that it would not be the first to emerge, took up a rock and murdered the leader. It roared in triumph and led the rest into the light.